In one embodiment, a communications environment includes a plurality of client nodes coupled to one or more server nodes via a communications medium. One example of the communications medium is the InfiniBand™ transport, an example of which is described in “InfiniBandi Architecture Specification Volume 1,” Release 1.1, Nov. 6, 2002, available from the InfiniBand Trade Association at 5440 SW Westgate Drive, Suite 217, Portland, Oreg., 97221, or online at www.Infinibandta.org, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. InfiniBand is a trademark of the InfiniBand Trade Association.
The InfiniBand transport enables a set of interconnected client and server nodes, referred to as a subnet, to communicate with one another. It also provides a partitioning scheme that allows a subnet to be logically subdivided into sets of nodes, referred to as partitions. A partition includes one or more client nodes, as well as one or more server nodes. A node, such as a server node, can be included in more than one partition. The members of a partition communicate with one another, but are unaware of any other partition.
When a node, such as a server node, is included in multiple partitions, all of the resources of that node are accessible by all of the partitions that include that node. This has proven to be disadvantageous for many reasons, including security concerns, as well as costs.
Thus, a need exists for a capability that enables access to resources of a node shared by multiple partitions to be restricted to particular partitions. As one example, a need exists for a capability that facilitates the determining of which resources of a server node are accessible by which partitions that include that node. As a further example, a need exists for a capability that facilitates the determining of which resources of a server node are accessible to particular client nodes.